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| 2003/11/07 - Afterthinks
2003/11/07 – Back in Shanghai
I’ve now been back for around a week and a half. I’m pretty surprised at how long it took to get all these journal entries edited and typed in. I still haven’t even started working with all the pictures I took.
Well, now that I’ve been back so long, I suppose this last entry should be about reflection. What did I learn? What have I gained? How am I different? These are difficult questions to answer, and maybe I would be able to answer them better after a long time, like a year or two. But I know that you all don’t want to wait that long, so I’ll write what I can now.
To tell the truth, “summing up” my experience, or eloquently putting together all the “wisdom” I’ve gained, is a bit of an intimidating task. I feel like I should be a bigger, wiser, more worldly person after having been on this trip. But it looks like I’m still just me. I do know more than when I left. I guess I have an increased perspective. But these kinds of advantages are hard to feel in your daily life. I’ve gone back to being who I was before the trip, and doing the things I did before the trip. The trip didn’t make me into a new man. But that’s okay. I’m not - and would never - say that the trip wasn’t worth it. It was. I saw pieces of history I had no idea that I was missing. I was at that second level of unawareness – the one where you don’t even know that you don’t know something. But now… I know. I guess that’s where the change in me has occurred. I have the knowledge and memories of what I did. And I guess I now have this journal to remind me when I forget stuff, which will inevitably happen. 
I wonder if people expect me to have a new perspective on Shanghai. I think some do. Well, I do, in a way. I wouldn’t say it’s a *better* perspective on Shanghai, but it is different. I have seen cities and people much like what Shanghai probably was and had maybe ten years ago. But that’s not a completely accurate statement, either. Shanghai *still is* those places and *still has* those people. The pigeon guy exists somewhere in Shanghai, for sure. The difference is that here in Shanghai, because of the advantages given to me in my life, and because of the high degree of class separation, I rarely rub elbows with those people or spend time in those places around here. I can’t say that, in terms of degree of civilization, Shanghainese people have “progressed beyond” the civilization of people in northwest China. I can only say that *some* Shanghainese have progressed beyond that point. But, I can also say that some people in northwest China have already progressed past many Shanghainese in that aspect, despite the lack of metropolis city surroundings. When I think about it, if I were to choose between meeting someone who was open-minded but who was just uneducated, and another person who was educated, but very close-minded, I’d almost always choose the first one, unless there was something really special about the close-minded one. I guess the end conclusion is the same one I always make. I’m kind of tired of reaching this conclusion, but the more times I reach it, the more likely it’s right, and I suppose that’s good. It works like this: Whenever I start a thought process in my head or a conversation about comparing people from place A and place B or people of this race with that race, I always seem to end up thinking that it really doesn’t matter what group of people you look at, you will always have around the same ratios of thoughtful, scared, jealous, hard-working, strict, criminal, mature, friendly, or whatever other sub-group of societal members you could come up with. People just end up being people. I just have to do my best to find the good ones wherever I am, and ignore the bad ones, however hard that may be – due to their numbers or the fact that I’m sitting next to them on a bus.
Anyway, I think that’s just about enough reflection. If I keep going, I might get caught up, and make you spend even more time thinking, “WHEN IS THIS JOURNAL GOING TO END????” Soon, soon. There are only a few things I’d like to mention before I finish.
” What would I have done differently?” - Well, lets see… I wouldn’t have gone for that 4 day / 3 night trip to Heavenly Lake. I think one or two nights up there is plenty. And I could have probably achieved the important parts of that portion of the trip without going through Mark Zhong, who proved to be a bit of an anticlimactic find. Especially now that I’ve been there once and seen how things work, getting guides and horses and yurts to stay in would be very easy. With the extra couple of days that could have given me, I would have taken a train to Kashgar. It is the westernmost big city in Xinjiang, and China. It is said to be one of the places least like the rest of China, and most like the Middle East. Osman from Turpan told me that if I went there, the frequency of people mistaking me for Uyghur would increase greatly. That the southeast Xinjiang Uyghurs had changed in general appearance over a couple hundred years, now looking a little more toward the Han, Tibetans, and Mongolians. He said my appearance much more resembles the western Xinjiang Uyghurs. As enjoyable as it had been to be mistaken for an Uyghur by Uyghurs in places like Turpan, I’m sure it would be even MORE enjoyable if it happened more often…
”How much did this cost you?” - Well, my total expenses were 10,637 Chinese Yuan (or RMB), which is not quite 1300 US dollars. This includes my airfare from Shanghai to Urumqi and from Lanzhou back to Shanghai, and my 3800 RMB trip to the Heavenly Mountains arranged through Mark Zhong. If you don’t count those expenses, if you just count the expenses I had on the road from things like hotel, to ground transportation, to food, the total was 3817 RMB or 462 dollars. That works out to about 300 RMB or 36 dollars a day. Not too bad. If I adjusted my trip according to what I said in the previous “what would I change” paragraph, the total cost probably would have come out to be about 8050 RMB or 975 dollars for EVERYTHING. Once again, I’d say that’s not too bad for a 17-day trip.
”Do you think you’ll ever go back?” - Hrrm. I don’t know. I would certainly like to someday. But the problem is that world is full of wonderfully interesting places that I haven’t been to, places which are once again and maybe even more so “different than what I know”. Undoubtedly, there are an infinite number of places that I don’t even know that I don’t know about. Which is a good segue for:
”Will you go anywhere else soon?” - Um, does visiting my homes in the US count? I don’t think so. So, the answer is – maybe. I have promised to go with my dad to Tibet sometime soon, maybe in the next year or two. That would very likely prove to be a worthwhile and fascinating trip. Or perhaps I’ll make a jaunt over to Vietnam sometime soon. That would be novel, don’t you think, Ashley?
Anyway, I think I’m out of possible FAQ questions. If you do actually have some questions for me, feel free to contact me and ask them, and perhaps I’ll post them up here if it seems like something people would want to know.
I want to thank a few people before I forget. I want to thank Ed and Li Jun for giving me light by which to write this journal, and to see things in dark caves and hotel rooms when there was no electricity. I want to thank Michael Freels for giving me hand-warmers that kept me from shivering when I had a fever from my food poisoning. Also, to Michael Connolly putting together Shanghaiexpat.com, which has been extremely valuable to me both in terms of planning my trip and posting this log, and in terms of my getting by in Shanghai in general. But the most thanks goes to my dad for suggesting that I take this trip, giving me so much support in planning it, and giving me the opportunity period.
Oh, and of course, You. Thank you very much for reading my journal. I honestly appreciate it. In some respects, my weblog here is for my own good, so that I can remember as much about this trip as possible. I didn’t buy one souvenir on this trip. I’ve had trips like that, and you always end up forgetting the significance of the thing you bought, or you lose it, or it gets stuffed in storage somewhere, rarely to be looked at, if ever. But these things that I have written are my own words, and as I re-read them, I’ll be able to remember exactly where I was sitting when I wrote something, or a detail that I wanted to write, but was too tired for at the time. This is probably the best way I can think of to remember my experience. Well, that and pictures of course, but I’ll get to work on those soon.
Nonetheless, the weblog is also for the benefit of other people, and my desire to share, or I wouldn’t be putting it on the web, right? And when people read the log and give me comments or simply tell me that they read it, it helps to make all the work feel like it was worth it. Thanks again, and a sail full of forward winds to you (一帆风顺).
Jeremy
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| 2003/10/28 - The Last Stretch
2003/10/28 – 15:30 PM – At the Lanzhou Airport
I’m at the Lanzhou airport now, and am waiting to board my flight back to Shanghai. My trip is virtually over. Before I write anything else, though, I wan to put in some final thoughts about Lanzhou.
Shanghai is dirty. There’s so much construction constantly going on, that dust and dirt have an omnipresent coat on the streets, people’s shoes, and their bodies (if they go out for more than a few seconds at a time). Lanzhou, however, is DIRTY. I know I’ve mentioned this before, but it bears repeating. After a day of walking around, riding buses, etc, if I take a wet white washcloth and wipe my face, the cloth will instantly be brown/black. This may be in part due to the thick air pollution, I don’t know. But I’m glad I can’t see the inner surface of my lungs. I have a feeling I would be horrified.
There are a large number of Hui Muslims in Lanzhou, just like most of the cities I’ve been to on this trip. In the middle of the city, there is a HUGE mosque – also like many of the cities I’ve been to, like Xining. But this mosque is special in that it lights up at night, making it look like a strange Islamic amusement park. The size and elaborateness of this mosque indicates to me that a lot of money has been put into building it. Its location is also quite central – at the intersection of two major elevated highways. I have mentioned before my concern for the future of some of the ethnic minorities, but perhaps the Hui aren’t doing quite as bad as some of the others. Perhaps their relative similarity in appearance to the Hans has allowed them more opportunities than some of the other minorities. Or, maybe the Hui are just especially generous when it comes to giving money and resources to their mosques. I dunno.
The last thing that I want to mention about Lanzhou really has me puzzled. I’ve noticed that on almost every city block, there’s a small shop with a sign that says “Husband and Wife Products” or “Husband and Wife Health” or “Planned Parenthood Products” or even “Sexual Health Products”. I’ve *rarely* (read: literally once) seen stores advertised in this blatant kind of fashion here in China, but in Lanzhou, they’re EVERYWHERE – sometimes even two or three of them on a block. In Shanghai, contraceptives are available at most any convenience store, and there are thousands of those scattered across the city, so I though that maybe since Lanzhou doesn’t have convenience stores, there needed to be a place to sell contraceptives. But upon taking a glance inside one of this little hole-in-the-wall establishments, it became quite clear to me that the stuff they sell in there is WAY racier and more risqué than just condoms. They have all sorts of products from “virility booster” medicines and herbs to strange toys. Their selection is really astounding. BUT WHY? What’s so unique about Lanzhou that would make these stores SO very commonplace? Were they having a lot of trouble enforcing the one-child policy here? Did the government subsidize or sponsor stores that sold contraceptives, and it just got out of hand? I can’t really see how virility boosters help control the population… Or maybe there are just different attitudes toward sex here? I would find it fairly surprising if this *one* city had such unique (and progressive) views. In my experience, China manages to remain fairly uniform in terms of things like conservatism. Anyway, this is a mystery that I may never find an answer to, but I felt it was worth mentioning.
2003/10/28 – 17:10 PM – On the plane from Lanzhou to Shanghai
I’m still sick-feeling, but not quite as bad as yesterday, so hopefully I’m on the mend. It’s funny to be taking such a modern form of transportation again. People still seem to use the area around them as a place to deposit garbage they don’t want, but to a slightly lesser degree than on a bus or on the train. On the contrary, there’s a Japanese guy in front of me who worked very hard to pick up a rubber band he dropped on the floor, so that he could take all the waste from his meal, and re-package it in the original plastic box. It was fascinating to watch, especially after what I’ve been seeing for the last two weeks. Nobody has spit on the floor, and then smeared it with their shoe, either. Oh, and nobody seems to be carrying a pigeon in their pocket.
I haven’t shaved since I left Shanghai. Originally, I didn’t shave because my face got sun burnt at Heavenly Lake, and it took a while before my skin went back to normal. I naturally didn’t want to shave while my skin was irritated, but by the time it felt better, the hairs on my face were too long to be caught and cut by my electric travel razor. I look quite scruffy, but I figure that it goes along well with the whole “Backpacker” style I’ve got going on. Fleece vest, beard, North Face pants (real ones, not Xiangyang knockoffs), Columbia jacket, and dirty hiking shoes (they were fairly new-looking when I started the trip, but certainly not anymore).
My hands have definitely NOT healed completely. Some of the worst cracks in my skin from the first few days at Heavenly Lake have mostly healed - and more importantly, don’t bleed anymore - but there are still some that remain. I have a couple that happened at the tips of my fingers. These are especially slow to heal because the tips of your fingers get the most use. Therefore they get bumped, rubbed, and poked far more often, which really slows healing. Also because of this high use, keeping these open wounds clean is FAR more difficult. I have to use my hands to do all sorts of things causing my fingertips to come into contact with ALL sorts of unsavory surfaces and objects, and since open wounds try their best to stay moist, they end up picking up any dirt, dust, or whatever that they come into contact with. I’m expecting to heal much faster once I get back and can wash my hands freely, like a kid in a candy shop.
To tell the truth, my body has gone through quite the roller coaster ride this trip. Sunburned face, then peeling face…. Dry hands that crack and bleed, and then don’t heal… A Range of intestinal issues from standard traveler’s diarrhea to food poising to garlic-induced gas that was painful like I haven’t felt in years…. And last but not least, this cold/flu that I’ve got right now. These things have all been very annoying and certainly raised my frustration levels at times, but when you’re out in the middle of nowhere northwest China, it’s kind of just a matter of dealing with it, and moving on.
We’re now descending toward Shanghai, and will land soon. I’ll be interested to see how fast the seatbelts come off and the mobile phones come on. Ahhh, there we are – it was IMMEDIATE. The Chinese may have bad habits, but in the very least, they’re predictable.
Jeremy
| What did I eat today? | | Complimentary Breakfast at the hotel | Red Bean Bun
豆沙包 | A steamed bread bun with red bean paste filling. This one was BAD, though. The bean paste was cold and chunky and completely bland. I don’t necessarily like it to be like candy, but this had no flavor. | Tea Eggs
茶叶蛋 | Spiced/marinated hard-boiled eggs. | Picked vegetables
酸菜 | These were actually pretty good. I had some real spicy ones today. | | Lunch on the street in Lanzhou | Beef Noodles
牛肉面 | I figured I was in Lanzhou, the place SO famous around China for it’s beef noodles, so I should have a bowl before I leave. I went to a beef noodle chain store and had a bowl. It wasn’t actually that exciting. I probably should have asked someone where to go. | Mo Jia Rou
馍夹肉 | I enjoyed the one I had yesterday SO MUCH, that I went back to the same guy, and bought 2 more. One to eat immediately, and one to have on the way to the airport. Man, I already miss that guy. | | Dinner on the plane | You didn’t really think I was going to include what I ate on the *AIRPLANE*, did you? No? Well, good. |
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| 2003/10/27 - Don’t Give Up, Sicko. You’re Almost There! Click here for today’s pictures
2003/10/27 – 18:30 PM – On a local bus coming back from Binglingsi to Lanzhou
I have officially caught a cold/flu. I was pretty sure about it yesterday, and had an idea about it the day before, but today it’s undeniable. To tell the truth, I feel quite miserable. I’ve got a bit of a fever with shivers and aches, my throat is sore, my sinuses itch, and there’s lots of coughing. I’m not exactly sure where I got this cold/flu. It may have been that MaBing’s cold has been with me since I was at Heavenly Lake, and only now did it surface because of the amount of exercise I’ve been getting and how cold it’s been. But it’s just as likely that I caught it from anyone else. Since the Chinese here love to spit, especially when they are sick or have lots of phlegm, I’m exposed to MUCH more disease than is healthy. In addition, for some reason Chinese people don’t seem to think that having a cold counts as being sick. Therefore they take no precautions to protect others when they have a cold. People go to work (even in the food service business), attend school, and eat from the same plate as others with their diseased chopsticks, shake hands, etc… All of this happens with no increase in their hygiene habits, such as hand washing. It really gives me the creeps to think, just by being around all these spitting people, how much other people’s bodily fluid I’ve been in contact with. I’ve tried very hard to use disinfectants and such to keep myself relatively germ-free, washing my hands whenever possible, but out here in the less-developed areas, it’s quite impossible to do a good job. And apparently I haven’t done enough.
Partly due to this sickness, I almost decided to go back to Shanghai today. I’m glad I didn’t. Here’s the story.
There’s only one place left that I had been wanting to go to on this trip. It’s called the Binglingsi Temple Caves. They’re another set of “Thousand Buddha Caves”, 70 km outside of Lanzhou. Getting there is rather difficult. You have to get yourself from Lanzhou to a certain spot along the Yellow River, and then take a boat 54 km along the river to the caves. In the end it requires around 8-9 hours of travel for only one hour of cave browsing. From what I had read, it might also have cost me anywhere from 600-1000 RMB for the entire trip, and when the most I had spent so far on a day of sightseeing was around 300-400, I felt very reluctant.
Another issue I was faced with was the possible lack of flights tomorrow to Shanghai. I had read that flights to Shanghai only flew every other day, and I really didn’t want to stay in Lanzhou for three nights, catching a plane on Wednesday.
These two possible monkey wrenches and my lack of health were slowly convincing me just to go back to Shanghai today and forget about Binglingsi. Somewhere inside me, though, there was a voice saying to me, “Wah, wah, my body hurts… You little whining wimp. You get a little sick and things get a little inconvenient, and you decide to run back to Shanghai, giving up an amazing opportunity to see some pieces of history that no one you know has ever seen before. How sad.” So here’s what I decided. I would look for a less expensive way to get to Binglingsi, and go to the airline ticket office to see if I couldn’t get a flight for tomorrow. If both of these things worked out, I would go. Otherwise, I thought, fate and my body must be telling me that it was time for my trip to be over.
Well, it all worked out. After calling a couple of local travel agencies about getting me to Liujiaxia, the place where you catch the boats, and getting quoted around 550 RMB just to get me to that point and back, I finally talked to a travel agent in my hotel’s lobby who said I could just catch a bus from a place right near the hotel, all the way to Liujiaxia, though it would be a little slower. I found the spot and confirmed this information (the tickets were only 11.50!!!). Heartened, I went immediately to the airline booking office, which was able to get me on a flight tomorrow afternoon. Perfect!
I hopped on the next bus, which was a 10:15 AM bus. It took over three hours to get there, because of bad roads (literally driving through a riverbed at one point), but mostly because the bus had to troll the streets of Lanzhou at 5 km/h looking for more riders, sometimes looping over the same street twice. Being sick made the smoke on the bus especially hard to handle.
When I got to Liujiaxia, the bus driver let me off and pointed me down a random road. I walked down it, having no idea where I was going, as there were no signs regarding Binglingsi, until a guy waving a picture of a boat approached me. He quoted me 200 RMB to get me there and back, 50 minutes each way, on his little speedboat. After that, it was the Taersi Temple situation all over again, but far less severe. A bunch of guys showed me pictures of boats, quoting me prices, etc. I went with the first guy again, mostly because he could get me there in a timely manner (one guy wanted me to stay there overnight), we could leave immediately (another guy was going to wait for 6 or 7 more people, though he tried very hard to deny it), and just like at Taersi Temple, he was the first to approach me, unlike the others who were trying to steal his business.
200 RMB seemed like a lot, as back in Turpan 100 got me a car for the day, but I had heard of a whole boat costing 400 RMB, so I decided not even to haggle with him. It turned out to be worth it. The view from the boat would have been worth the entire trip itself. We went westward along the Yellow River for 54 km, through a couple of gorges and lakes, and all different kinds of terrain. In some places, the river valley had rocky, jagged walls, some places had smooth and multi-layered red and yellow hill-like walls, and in some places, like where Binglingsi is, there are tall skinny towers of stone, like a stone forest, carved out of the rock by the Yellow River over thousands, maybe tens of thousands of years. In my original post that I put up before I started my trip, I listed some terrains that I’d be going over, but I had no idea I’d be riding a speedboat along the Yellow River. A highly satisfying surprise.
The caves themselves weren’t a disappointment, either. There are a couple of basic differences between these caves and the ones at Mogao in Dunhuang. The caves at Mogao were carved out of the sandstone rock face, but the statues were all wooden frames with mud/straw/stucco coverings. Here, most of the statues are carved directly out of the rock wall, so that the statues and the caves are all one solid piece of stone. Another difference is that, since the rock here is much harder, the caves aren’t NEARLY as large. The only ones you can actually walk into are the naturally formed caves. Many of the sculptures and engravings are even on the surface of the rock, not really in a cave at all.
There were once three levels of caves (here’s the top two). All of the caves on the bottom level have been covered up by silt deposits from the Yellow River (due to dams built in the area, of course), but luckily a number of the best statues were saved, and placed elsewhere in the area. The paintings, however, were lost.
The artwork at Binglingsi is once again all Buddhist, but show much less foreign influence than those at Mogao. This is because the location is much more remote, and not directly on the path of the Silk Road. Nonetheless, there are still some places where you can definitely see Indian style painting an/or depictions of Indian architecture. It makes sense that there would still be Indian influences, seeing as how India is where Buddhism originated.
One of the defining features of Binglingsi is a 27 meter tall Buddha, created in 731 AD. The top half of this Buddha is carved directly out of the rock face and the bottom half is wood frame/mud/straw/etc. It is said that the reason for this half-and-half design is that the woman who sponsored the construction of this Buddha was a Han woman who was betrothed and married to a Tibetan royal, to improve relations. She had it made in 2 halves to represent her loyalty to both Han and Tibetan people. This Buddha is exposed to the outside, and does not have a building to house him. He used to have one, until a local minority rebellion came through and destroyed it a couple hundred years ago, damaging many of the other caves and their artwork in the process, also.
Just like at Mogao, you can see how details of the artwork change over time, as people adapt the representations to resemble the styles of that time. For example - in cave 9, there is a painting of Buddha wearing Tang Dynasty style boots. It is VERY rare to find a depiction of Buddha with any kind of footwear at all; he’s almost always barefoot.
The best (and oldest) caves and Binglinsi are number 169 and 172. BUT, since they are SO good, you have to pay extra to see them. A normal ticket to the caves costs 30 RMB, but to see number 169 and 172, you have to pay 300 RMB extra! That’s 36 extra US dollars! Ridiculous! These two natural caves are quite large and old (cave 169 is 16 meters wide, and 9 meters deep), and the sculptures within were made around 402 AD. I decided not to spend 10 times the normal ticket price, and just went for a guided tour of the standard caves.
Though the relative historical significance of these caves seems ever so slightly smaller when compared with the Mogao Caves at Dunhuang, it was still a fascinating place to visit. It’s really hard to compete with Mogao, which is a depository of over 1000 years of connections and culture exchange from China to the western world. Nevertheless, Binglingsi still ranks among on of my more successful ventures on this trip.
At the end of the day, though I’m feverish and achy and generally not healthy, I’m really glad everything worked out. It has probably been my most expensive day (except possibly for my day in Turpan), but getting to ride along the Yellow River and seeing the Binglingsi Caves really made it worth it. I’m glad my last day of tourism was such a successful one. It really would have been a pity to end my trip having my somewhat disappointing day in Xiahe have been my last adventure.
I fly back to Shanghai tomorrow and am going to try to get some rest tonight, since I have nothing planned in the morning (for the first time in a long time). I’d really like it if I could get over the worst of this cold/flu by the time I get back.
Oh – one last thing - you’ve GOT to check out this mosque in Lanzhou. Mind-boggling.
Jeremy
| What did I eat today? | | Complimentary Breakfast at the hotel | Rice Porrige
稀饭 | Once again, I guess you could call this style of breakfast the “Chinese Continental Breakfast”. It consists of a few types of porridge – rice, bean, or other grain, some steamed buns and breads, and some small dishes with picked veggies, or tofu, or other cold-but-flavorful dishes to spice up the bread and porridges. | Tea Eggs
茶叶蛋 | Spiced/marinated hard-boiled eggs. | Picked vegetables
酸菜 | I mixed them in with the rice porridge. | | Lunch on the bus | Mo Jia Rou
馍夹肉 | This is the non-sloppy sloppy joe sandwich deal. A guy has a simmering pot of pork meat, he pulls a chunk out, puts it on a cutting board, and skillfully starts chopping. While chopping, he throws a hot pepper into the mix, and within seconds, it is all chopped and mixed very evenly. He cuts a mo into two slices, and slides the meat/pepper mix inside. The stuff is delicious. | Chicken leg
鸡腿 | The first roast chicken leg didn’t hurt me the other day, so I thought I’d go for another. | | Dinner next to my hotel in Lanzhou | Chicken Soup
鸡汤 | I’ve been having chicken soup almost every night, but tonight I felt I ESPECIALLY deserved it because of how sick I was. | Stir fried Eggplant and Bell Peppers
茄子炒青椒 | I just wanted some vegetables to round out my nutritional experience. |
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| 2003/10/26 - Xiahe? Meh. Click here for today’s pictures
(For today’s pictures, I wasn’t able to link as many of the pictures to parts of the journal, so I recommend you just go and browse through them at the link above in addition to clicking on the links in the journal below.)
2003/10/26 – 14:30 PM – On a bus from Xiahe to Lanzhou
I think that the people who wrote my guide books must have gone to Xiahe in the summertime. They all say morning is the best time to go to the monastery and walk around, taking in the atmosphere, and interacting with the monks. I was out and about at 7:15 AM, and it was freezing. Few people were out at all. The monks that *were* out were tightly clutching their robes around their heads, walking quickly and purposefully to wherever they were going, just trying to stay warm until they reached the next place with a hot stove. My hands and ears stung from the biting wind that was blowing across them, despite the fact that I was wearing gloves. But I kept walking around, because no restaurants were open, and maintaining movement was the only way to keep my body producing heat.
I went to the ticket office as soon as it opened to confirm when I could get an English tour. You can roam the grounds of the monastery for free, but you can’t enter any of the temples unless you buy a ticket and are with a guide. The guy at the ticket office told me that there would be one at 10:15 AM. That gave me about 2 hours, so I went and had breakfast, and decided to walk all the way around the monastery with the pilgrims. When I had been up earlier, the only people out in any number were the pilgrims. The stamina of these people really impresses me. Even the oldest of them, those whose backs are perpetually doubled over at near-90-degree angles and walking with canes keep up a VERY brisk pace, over ground which is frequently rocky and uphill. Along about 60% of the way, along the wall of the monastery, there are vertically mounted cylinders, around 1 meter in height, with various kinds of handles. Each of these is painted elaborately with the same exact pictures and Tibetan script. These are called prayer wheels, and as the pilgrims walk the path, they spin each wheel by its handles. Each spin of a wheel represents one time saying the prayer which is painted on the wheels, which I believe is “Omani Peimei Hung”. Sometimes, especially in the case of the elderly pilgrims, they don’t spin each wheel a full turn; they just give it a nudge, as each one is a bit heavy. I’d estimate that there are around 600 of these standard-sized prayers wheels around the monastery. In addition, at various points along the way, there are about 20-30 little structures housing wheels that are about 2.5 meters tall, and 1 meter thick. The pilgrims walk all the way around these wheels, holding the handle the whole way, thus completing an entire spin. Finally, in the northwest and northeast corners of the monastery, there are 2 white towers about 4-5 meters high, with square bases that are about 6-7 meters per side. The pilgrims have to walk around these also, though they require walking around a certain number of times, the exact number of which I’m unsure on. I’m also unsure of the number of times the pilgrims must walk around the entire monastery. As I mentioned yesterday, all of these things I’ve been describing are done clockwise. Walking clockwise around the monastery, they stop and walk clockwise around the white towers and large prayer wheels, and push the handles of the small prayer wheels with their right hands, which spins them clockwise. Some of them even have small, hand-held prayer wheels, which almost look like a child’s toy made out of brass or similar material, with a handle on the bottom and a small cylinder on top. From the side of this cylinder, there’s a small weight dangling from a chain which is spun around…. clockwise. I really wish I knew the significance of the clockwise direction in Tibetan Buddhism, but I don’t.
You may notice that with lots of the places I have been to on this trip, I end up with lots of newly-found knowledge about the place, and lots of history to report, but this time, I’m left with lots of “I’m not sure why….”, and “I don’t know…” Well, here’s why: Xiahe has been a bit of a disappointment. When I went back to the ticket office to wait for the English tour, I was pleasantly surprised as a couple of the monks invited me to come in and sit with them by the stove in the ticket office. We chatted for a while waiting for other visitors to join. After a bit, they told me to buy my ticket and wait outside. I did so, but when they pointed at where to go, I saw that I was being put with a group of about 25 Chinese tourists. I went back and told them that I was waiting for an English guide, and a surprisingly surly monk popped out and said, “There isn’t one. Go with them.” I asked why I was told to come back at this time to wait for the English guide, and he replied, “There isn’t one today – go with them.” Frustrated and annoyed, but with no options, I just joined the group. They were a bunch of students from an art school in Guangzhou. Basically, the tour went like this: A young monk who spoke softly and had a very gravelly voice took us to about 6 of the various temples, let us read the introductory sign (which was in Chinese and Tibetan – which I had no chance of reading fast enough before we went into the temple), we would gather round this young monk, and he would re-tell what was on the introduction sign in a far-too-small voice, and far too quickly for me to understand. The students told me later that they couldn’t understand much of what he said, either, so that made me feel a little less stupid, but still left me having only understood about 10% of the tour. Also, inside the various temples, the monk would tell us to take a good look, because we wouldn’t be let back in. Then, after we turned around to take this “good look”, an older monk would rush us out, saying, “That’s enough, that’s enough.” In the end, I might as well have not had a tour guide at all. At Taersi Temple near Xining, though Zhuanma spoke in Mandarin to me, at least she spoke loudly and clearly, and also was my personal guide, allowing me to ask her to explain things more thoroughly, or repeat herself if need be. I would gladly have paid for a personal guide here, but I don’t think they do that.
Here’s my impression of what’s going on, both in terms of the attitude of the monks, and my disappointment: So far on my trip, I think I’ve been lucky, and therefore a little bit spoiled by the quality of the guides and service, in addition to the openness of the destinations. I think I had also been building up my expectations of Xiahe because of the praises I had read about it, and the significance of the monastery. In the end, these are monks, and this is a very holy monastery. They are here to study and worship – not to be guides for curious tourists like me. My impression is that they grudgingly accept this minor invasion of their business because they realize that there is some benefit to it. But, benefit or not, they’re not especially eager to put great amounts of effort into it. Oh well, I can still say that I’ve seen the second most important Gelugpa Yellow Hat Tibetan Buddhist temple in the world, and had an experience of it - just maybe not the experience that I had been hoping for.
I decided to take one more stroll around the pilgrim’s route for exercise, and just to see what I could see. Afterwards, I collected my stuff and headed for the bus station, not really feeling any need to roam around anymore, and I wasn’t feeling the Lonely Planet’s description of Xiahe as “a good place to take a break from the rigors of the road.”
2003/10/26 – 20:30 PM – In my hotel room in Lanzhou
The trip from Xiahe to Lanzhou took about 6.5 hours, and was once again over some poorly maintained road. Along about two-thirds of the way, farmers were burning SOMETHING, so in addition to cigarette smoke from the inside of the bus, I got to breath some other kind of smoke from the outside. There was this thick haze of smoke over any area with more than a few farms. I found out that this haze in the countryside continues right on into Lanzhou, said to be the most air-polluted city in the world. It’s located in a valley, which not only does a nice job of keeping all the pollutants from Lanzhou in place, but also of funneling in pollutants from the factories nearby. This place makes Shanghai look almost livable.
Oh, by the way, for anyone who’s been desperately waiting for me to have a real “Chinese” dining experience (like maybe Andy), this one’s for you. I had dog meat tonight. It was sliced and had clearly come out of a vacuum-sealed packaged, and it was cured. It was fairly soft and smooth in texture, but that may just have been a result of the cooking/curing process. It did taste a bit gamy, more so than your standard meats, but not too much. I must admit that I did find myself thinking about furry, dopey, slobbery pets while munching it down. But now I’ve eaten dog meat for the first time in my life, and you got to read about it. Satisfied? I am.
Jeremy
| What did I eat today? | | Breakfast at a Tibetan Restaurant | Tsampa | I don’t know how to write it in Chinese. I can only describe it in English. It is barley flour that has been mixed with water, kind of like oatmeal. But, it has been cooked until a lot of the moisture is gone. It is served on a small plate with a knife, in a dome shape, and you cut it like butter. It’s very dense, kind of like clay, and the flavor isn’t too strong either. But I liked it. | | Dooma? | I can’t remember the correct name for this stuff… could be dooma. This is the same stuff as tsampa: barley flour. But this has added sugar and butter. It also has much more water, and because of that, reminds me of cream of wheat or grits. I liked the dense tsampa better. | | Tibetan momo | This is not like momo in the other places I’ve been. They are basically steamed buns. But I discovered that these ones have a LOT more oil in them. I bit into one, and some juice came out, as happens with steamed buns sometimes, but when the juice cooled down on my finger, I discovered that it had solidified. It wasn’t juice, but pure animal fat. I guess you need the energy in Tibet where it’s freezing cold so much of the time. | | Lunch at the same Tibetan Restaurant | Tsampa | I liked the tsampa so much, I went back for more. I think the density of the stuff made it really satisfying to bite into. I think my mom would really like the stuff. | Chicken and laver (like seaweed) soup
紫菜鸡肉汤 | Not much to say, except I wonder where they got the seaweed? Must be shipped in unless it grows in nearby lakes… | | Dinner in Lanzhou | Dog Meat
狗肉 | Read the last paragraph of this journal for a description. | Chicken soup
鸡汤 | It would be anticlimactic to try an give an interesting description of chicken soup after the dog meat, don’t you think? |
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| 2003/10/25 - Descending upon the Middle of Nowhere Click here for today’s pictures
2003/10/25 – 20:30 AM – In my hotel room in Xiahe
Yet another bus day. I’d say that 75% or more of the people on the bus today were Tibetan. Once again, lots of staring at me during the beginning of the ride, then when I wasn’t exciting enough to them, most people lost interest. They’d still check back every once in a while to see if I had started being interesting. The views were spectacular today. We went through some VAST mountain grassy plateaus, with goats and yaks grazing all over the place. We also were on the worst stretch of road yet. We literally drove on mountainous dirt roads. The number of huge bumps that sent Tibetan monks into the air above their seats was ridiculous. The pattern clearly goes like this: The better the view, the worse the road quality. It only makes sense. The further you get away from civilization, the more natural the scenery.
Along the way, I also got to see the beginnings of the Yellow river. It’s China’s second longest river, second only to the Yangtze/Changjiang River. It starts here in Qinghai, and flows through much of mid-northern China, such as Gansu, Shaanxi, Inner Mongolia, and eventually all the way to the Pacific, somewhat near Beijing. It’s not yellow here. In fact it’s green, because it’s being fed by glaciers here on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau. The river becomes yellow as it collects silt, or loess, flowing through areas like Inner Mongolia.
LOTS of smoking on the bus today, and even more than usual amounts of garbage on the floor, especially in the aisle. Today there were pieces of wet fruit in the aisle, and every time someone walked down it, I was surprised that they didn’t slip and fall down. There were also those people who diligently waited until we stopped to let the driver inspect the bus’s engine, on some beautiful mountainside road, and threw their garbage out the window, instead of on the floor. I can’t decide which is worse. On one hand, you have the people with little consideration for the other people on the bus, but on the other hand you have those with little consideration for the sanctity of nature.
Xiahe is interesting enough. It’s a one-road town, a few kilometers long; whose main feature is the Labrang Monastery (click here for a wider view). A couple of thousand monks live in the monastery in tiny abodes outside the main temples, just like at Taersi Temple. The monk residence area is big enough for its own city. The whole monastery complex is quite huge. There’s also a path around it, almost 2 km long, that the Tibetan pilgrims from all over China (and some others) use to walk clockwise around the monastery. Tibetans seem to do everything clockwise. Entering and exiting temples (in left, out right), walking around various things (which they do quite a bit of), and spinning prayer wheels are three that I can think of off-hand.
From what I’ve seen in restaurants, Tibetan food consists mostly of wheat/barley items and butter. I guess it’s only natural. When you live in a high-elevation area like the Tibetan Plateau, where wheat and barley grow well, and mostly yaks are the best livestock, what else would you eat?
According to statistics, about one half of this city is Tibetan, 40% are Han, and 10% are Hui. The Tibetans are also CLEARLY the poorest. Just outside the monastery, I saw a long, long row of shoe salesmen, selling shoes off blankets. Upon closer inspection, though, ALL the shoes in the WHOLE row of merchants were used shoes. And there was a Tibetan lady selling plastic toys – many of which were used and/or broken. I don’t know if things are getting worse or staying the same. But I do know that I feel inclined to give a bit of money to beggars here, whereas I didn’t so much in other places. This is probably also influenced by the fact that I see Tibetans giving money to Tibetan beggars here, which gives me more confidence that these people really need it.
The other interesting thing to happen so far is that the electricity went out while I was having dinner. The entire town was black. The owner of the restaurant was telling me how it had gone out a few times the day before, and POOF! – out it went. I was going to go to a net café after dinner, but with no electricity, that became out of the question, so I just came back here to the hotel. After about 20-25 minutes, the power came back, but has been fluctuating in intensity a bit. It really lets me know that I’m out in nowhere land.
I seem to always say how I’m getting up early the next morning in my journal. I’m not sure why I feel so inclined to say so, but I do. So, I’m getting up early tomorrow to go and roam the monastery, as I hear that morning time is the best time to do it. Then I’ll go on a guided tour of the temples. I may go to Lanzhou tomorrow after the tour. Depends on if I feel like walking around the monastery more, or if I get enough in the morning.
Jeremy
| What did I eat today? | | Breakfast in my hotel room | Mixed Grain Momo
杂粮馍馍 | Mo bread. (get it?!? {{snigger,snigger}}) I frequently eat in my hotel room because I have to get up so early to catch a bus, that no restaurants or stores are open. I just buy some stuff the night before and eat it when I wake up. | | Lunch on the bus | Sesame Flavor Crackers
芝麻味道饼干 | I just saw these at a market, and it said “no added sugar” and “high fiber”, so I got them. Everything else has sugar as the second ingredient. | Yak/Beef Jerky
牦牛/牛肉干 | | | Dinner at a small restaurant in Xiahe | Chicken Clay Pot
鸡肉砂锅 | Yeah, I’ve had a few of these lately, but they’re usually pretty good, and I can avoid things like TOO much oil or lots of noodles this way. |
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